Interview with Nicola Stroop: Loneliness of single parents

Single parents often bear the entire responsibility for their family. Between daycare, work and household chores, they are there for their children around the clock. Despite social contacts in everyday life, there is often little time to cultivate relationships or exchange ideas with others. As a result, many single mothers and fathers are isolated or feel lonely.

To find out how common loneliness is among single parents and what can be done to combat it, we spoke to Nicola Stroop from the Association of Single Mothers and Fathers in North Rhine-Westphalia (VAMV NRW). An interview about special challenges, solutions and the courage to simply go to a meeting.

Familienportal.NRW: Having to manage everyday life and parenting alone is a real feat for single parents. What's more, single parents feel increasingly lonely. Are there any figures or studies that make the extent of loneliness tangible?

Nicola Stroop: As a self-help organization, we tend to focus on qualitative experiences. In our encounters, single parents often report feelings of loneliness, even if they usually avoid the word "loneliness" themselves. It is a term that is negative and shameful for many people. Single parents therefore tend to complain about the lack of opportunities to maintain friendships because they are with their child around the clock. Or they describe how misunderstood they feel in their circle of friends because of their life situation. However, very few of them clearly say "I'm lonely!". This phenomenon is confirmed by research. Lonely people avoid the term because it is socially associated with personal failure - and they cannot and do not want to identify with this.

What services are available to combat loneliness and why do they often not reach the people who need them?

Our State Office for Single Parents is in close contact with organizations from NRW that organize local services for single parents. We keep hearing from the providers that services to combat loneliness are often not accepted - especially if they are directly "labeled" as such. As already mentioned, this is due to the fact that people often do not admit to their loneliness. They are therefore also difficult to reach with this approach. We therefore advise avoiding the label "loneliness" and instead creating topic-specific offers that are more likely to arouse the interest of single parents and break down inhibitions.

We have often been asked what providers can do to ensure that their well-intentioned services reach more single parents. This gave rise to the idea of organizing a specialist exchange on the topic of loneliness. At the specialist days in May and November this year, stakeholders will present examples of best practice. This will allow the organizations to share their experiences and benefit from each other.

What options do single parents have to escape social isolation, especially as time is often short in everyday life?

Isolation is not the same as loneliness. Some single parents are isolated but don't feel lonely - and vice versa. The fact is, however, that single parents, especially those with young children, without a job and possibly without contact or support from the other parent (i.e. really alone with the child 24/7), are more isolated than others. They are dependent on either taking their children with them or being able to take part in activities from home.

For single parents with young children in particular, online and social media offers a great opportunity. They offer the opportunity to maintain contacts from the sofa. Of course, this is no substitute for meeting in person, but it is a good way to bridge a certain period of time. As an association, we were therefore active on Facebook very early on, and now also on Instagram. We offer online self-help there, so to speak. Our events also take place either online or in person with childcare - usually even hybrid. Without this two-pronged approach, the services would simply not meet the needs of single parents.

Which specific networks and platforms are particularly helpful for single parents?

There are good offers for single mothers and fathers in almost every municipality, but single parents don't always know about them. In terms of public relations, there is certainly room for improvement in some areas. The offers work best when they are really tailored to the individual and the personal effort is low. Nobody takes a day off work to try out a breakfast meeting on a Tuesday morning. It's a different story if the offer takes place at the weekend, is easily accessible by public transport and the child can be brought along.

We support single parents who contact VAMV NRW by putting them in touch with local services. We know the services available very well and, as a member association, we enjoy a very high level of credibility among single parents. When we recommend something, single parents trust us. We always say "Why don't you try it out? If it's stupid, then you can leave or just don't go next time".

We as an association also offer our own attractive programs for single mothers and fathers - I can of course also highly recommend them!

What advice would you personally like to give to single parents who are feeling lonely right now?

I have been with VAMV for 13 years and have had many, many conversations with single parents. My advice is therefore: "Believe me, you are not alone. There are many people out there who understand exactly how you feel. Just go to a meeting, a course or an event. Take heart, go for a sniff. You have nothing to lose! What's the worst that can happen? If you don't like it, you just don't go back."

Nicola Stroop, thank you very much for the interview!

(The interview was conducted in 2025)